the curious grammar of Ohio

[Laurence Horn]

>Native of Southern Californian born 1947 into Appalachian family in
>California since 1925.  Everyone in the family used *anymore* this
>way, and also this:  "Anymore it seems everything's expensive."  I
>do, too; and living in Oregon now I notice it's common.  Are the two
>the same positive anymore?  I'm not a scholar, not familiar with
>some of the terms y'all are using.
>
>Marsha
>

In neither your case nor the one below is there a negative polarity
trigger, so yes, I'd classify both of them as instances of positive
"anymore".  What I remember from Labov's work is the demonstration of
how seriously wrong people are in figuring out what positive
"anymore" means in such examples if they're not speakers of the
relevant variety.

Larry
>
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>   Poster:       Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM<mailto:wilson.gray at RCN.COM>>
>   Subject:      Re: the curious grammar of Ohio
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>
>   If memory serves - and it probably doesn't - Labov(?) collected an
>   example of positive anymore in Kansas(?) from back in the '60's. It
>   went something like this.
>
>   Q. Do you find anything wrong with the following sentence?
>
>         "Cigarettes are really expensive, anymore."